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Just a reminder, AI-generated files are public domain (rule). (pawb.social)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Afaik no one knows where the line between "human-made" and "machine-made" is, so AI-generated imagery is considered public domain (at least for now).

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The problem with that is that copyright is viral. If you take a photo of a work under copyright, then your photo is also under that copyright. You own the copyright on the photo, but the original copyright holder owns the rights for the reproduction of the copyrighted work; meaning you both own copyright on the photo.

It usually isn't enforced, but you can see an example of this when news stations get sent C&Ds or DMCAs because some chucklefuck with a loud stereo decided to harass them (at least, I'm pretty sure I've heard of news stations getting legal letters as a result of someone playing unlicensed music in the background).

To make matters worse, because anything can be considered artistic with a good enough story, you can potentially claim copyright on reproductions of public domain works if you alter them in some way; even if that's just by changing the spelling of some names.

"Fun" fact: this is why some museums try to stop you from taking photos. The artifacts and paintings being presented may not be under copyright anymore, but the museum is claiming copyright on the presentation of the artwork or artifact, not the artwork or artifact itself. Afaik it's never gone to court so no one knows if it'd actually hold up (I think they usually cite other reasons for kicking you out, which makes it harder to fight), but you'd have to go to court to find out and there's no penalty for them falsely claiming copyright.

All that said, however, it doesn't take much for it to be considered derivative.

Yet, still, just putting the image into a bot and tell it to make a copy wouldn't be enough to free it from copyright; you just can't claim copyright on the (unauthorized) reproduction. The bar is pretty low unless it can be proven that you intended to infringe on someone's copyright (putting a image through a bot with the express purpose of getting a "copyright-free" copy would qualify), or even just awareness of someone's work, even if you didn't mean to copy it, can get you fucked.

There's been a fun case or two recently where musicians got sued because their melodies were the same as someone else's and the company was able to successfully argue that the original melodies were high-profile enough that said musicians must have been aware they were copying a melody.